Our Lives in Objects
by ongreenergrasses
Summary: We are all reflected in our possessions.
1. Shoes

**This was actually inspired by an experience of my best friends' - namely, the fact that what our possessions do sometimes reflects back on ourselves...  
>Written while listening to "Porcelain" by Lucy Schwartz.<br>Disclaimer: ****Hmm. I must own something. However, it really isn't this.  
>Warnings: Ummm, none? Just a random fan fiction that is not going to win the Pulitzer Prize. If you REALLY need to know, there's a snog. NOT SLASH (can't write slash) but sort of in the process of getting there, if that makes any sense...? <strong>

**Unbeta'd and not Britpicked. I take responsibility for all my errors.**

Sherlock has always been a very messy sort of person. He didn't consciously try to be messy – far from it, actually. He just did not care about the state of his living environment. It didn't directly impact him and, until he began losing his experiments amidst the towering piles of junk, he couldn't be bothered to clean it up. Which was why, before he met John Watson, numerous people on numerous occasions had asked him, "Sherlock, where are your shoes?"

It was quite a good question, really. Sherlock's shoes almost had a mind of their own. They seemed to travel around the flat on their own accord, stopping in ridiculously obscure places just for the sake of tormenting their owner when he went to go find them. On occasion, Sherlock would turn up ready to solve a case, dashing about like the arrogant blighter he was in his greatcoat and scarf but with no shoes or socks to speak of.

After slicing the sole of his foot open on a rusty nail outside a warehouse in Battersea, Sherlock made up his mind that he would at least attempt to keep his shoes under control and have them with him when he left the flat. He did not mind running around London barefoot, and he didn't even really mind that he had sliced his foot open. It was going to A&E and facing the idiot doctors and nurses that he couldn't stand. This new goal was easier said than done, of course, but eventually his shoes could either be found on his feet or within a five-foot radius of the door. This five-foot radius did not only extend to the ground ("Sherlock, I was upstairs in your flat and I found your shoes!" "Is that so, Mrs. Hudson?" "Yes, dear. In the dishwasher") but it was definitely an improvement.

Then John came along.

John and Sherlock's shoes were rather similar. The style, that is. Sherlock's were substantially more expensive, black, and polished within an inch of their life, where John's were the cheapest kind available, made of soft, worn brown leather. For the first few weeks that the pair became flatmates, neither of them took off their shoes when they came inside. They pulled them off when they went to bed, and only then, which meant that Sherlock sometimes ended up wearing his shoes for three days straight.

But sometime after the case John nicknamed The Blind Banker, their shoes started to come off once they came inside. Sherlock's could be found anywhere from the kitchen table to the bookcase, but John's were always lined up right next to the door. They wandered around the flat in their socks (or, in Sherlock's case, barefoot) and only pulled their shoes on when they were about to run out the door.

Over time, Sherlock's shoes began to gravitate back towards the stairs, where John's shoes were stationed. John's shoes were no longer lined up – instead, they were in a pile. Sherlock's shoes hovered at the kitchen doorframe, also in a pile.

Sarah and John were going on dates frequently now. Sometimes John's shoes were nowhere to be found in the flat. When this happened, Sherlock's shoes were the ones at the edge of the stairs. Sherlock's shoes waited anxiously for John's to return home.

Sherlock went to a masquerade ball for a case one day. John had the night shift at the surgery, and therefore was unable to come. But he did see Sherlock come downstairs in that black tuxedo, his skin positively glowing against his white shirt, his grey eyes sparkling with mischief and his long fingers playing with his bowtie. John quickly averted his eyes and ran upstairs before he would have a chance to embarrass himself. He missed the smug little smile on Sherlock's face.

That night, when Sherlock got home after having successfully apprehended the killer and caught two jewel thieves besides, he didn't bother to put his shoes back in the kitchen. Instead, he left his shoes in a pile on top of John's.

The pile became an almost regular occurrence. After running all over the city and dinner at Angelo's, they would tumble back upstairs, laughing and teasing each other about the married waitress who had been flirting with John or Sherlock's lackluster knowledge of the solar system. They just tugged their shoes off and left them there on top of each other as they went into the living room, Sherlock to play his violin or conduct a new experiment, John to update his blog.

Then the case known as The Great Game came along and everything changed. They didn't make it home for almost three weeks. Instead, the shoes stayed with their owners on different floors of St. Bart's as they recovered, looking very lonely underneath their respective chairs.

John recovered first. His shoes did not return to their normal spot at the top of the staircase. Instead, they stayed on his feet and his feet stayed in Sherlock's ward until Sherlock opened his eyes again and whispered in a voice cut with a thousand knives, "John."

When the shoes finally returned to Baker Street, they were separated again. Sherlock's hovered somewhere in the living room, while John's stayed in his bedroom. Gradually, though, after he broke it off with Sarah, the scuffed brown shoes tentatively emerged and settled back down near the bookcase. The black patent leather shoes retreated into the safety of the kitchen, amidst the failed experiments and expired cheese blocks and worn tea towels.

They eased their way back into solving cases for the Yard after that. Sherlock's shoes were kicked off at random intervals and left to lie wherever they fell, but John restarted the practice of pulling off his shoes at the top of the staircase. He did not bother to line them up.

One night after a particularly taxing and extremely random case, John and Sherlock stumbled out of a cab at two AM, both giggling from one too many wines from Angelo's. Sherlock caught the edge of his shoe on the curb and nearly tripped, catching himself on John who overbalanced and fell back against the door. They threw three times as much fare to the cabbie and eventually made their way inside.

They were at the very top of the stairs when Sherlock hiccupped and said in a voice two octaves higher than normal, "John, Johnny, John, I think I love you, John." John responded by grabbing the detective by his scarf and dragging Sherlock's lips down to his.

The very tips of their shoes were touching.


	2. Coat Hook

**Okay, I promised another chapter and here it is! A huge thanks to storm101 for being so supportive of my work and helping me to begin to conquer my shyness. Also, many hugs to alisseadreams and tigga7 for the favorites. In my everyday life: thanks to Eliza, E. Drummond, Terra, Emily, and Lina for all the help with this piece that has been such a torture to moi. An especially large amount of hugs and chocolate cookies needs to go to Tessa for being honest :)  
>Written while listening to a combination of "Waking Up in Vegas" by Katy Perry, "Gratitude" by Ani DiFranco, and "Come Home" by OneRepublic and Sara Bareilles. Not sure what that did for me, but it obviously did something.<br>Disclaimer: ****Nope, not mine. Someday, perhaps, I will get the honor. But not today.  
>Warnings: Okay, I apologize in advance. I have made four people cry while reading this. I owe everyone a fluff. Big time. (There is no violence, sex, drugs, la di la. It's just heartbreaking, apparently.)<strong>

It was one solo coat hook, mounted on the back of the flat's door with two rusting steel screws. It was like the rest of the flat, mismatched and unexpected, but it blended in reasonably well nonetheless. The hook was rather ornate, made of black cast iron with only one peg for you to hang your coat on. It was directly at eye level for a man who was six foot two inches tall.

In this particular flat, the door swung easily and if pushed too hard, the coat hanger would bump into the side of the oak wood bookcase and leave a little dent on impact. The coat hook did not particularly enjoy being slammed against the bookcase, and you can be sure that the bookcase despised that pesky coat hanger that kept leaving a dent in its wood and stripping away all the varnish. But the inhabitant of the flat of 221B regrettably had a tendency to slam that door open and day after day, the coat hanger rammed into the bookcase and day after day, the bookcase wondered why it even bothered to put up with the abuse any longer.

One day the bookcase was sulking after having been rammed once again. The dent was growing larger by the day and the varnish on that side – well, what varnish? As you can imagine, the bookcase was very put out indeed. Being a rather philosophical bookcase, it began to contemplate the existence of the coat hook (or more accurately, if the existence of the coat hook was even necessary. The bookcase sincerely hoped it would find evidence to the contrary).

The design of the hook was rather over the top, it mused, and other than make the thing pretty to look at, it served absolutely no purpose. The hook would function just as well if it were a dowel than if it were a fancy cast iron thing with swirls. Really, the hook itself was an impractical idea. There was only one, after all, and what if the Inhabitant (for that was what the bookcase called Sherlock Holmes) had company? What would they do with their coats? The bookcase began to feel a little bit sorry for the poor deprived coat hook. It really wasn't its fault that it was so malicious, not at all. It was just that one little lonely twisted piece of metal, mounted to the back of a door and condemned to spend the rest of its lifespan alone and lost.

The bookcase sighed as best a bookcase can. It would just have to put up with that horrific abuse for the rest of its days. Or until a shelf collapsed from the sheer amount of physics textbooks piled on it and the bookcase was thrown out into a dark alleyway, left to survive for itself amongst gigantic rats with only the other abandoned furniture and garbage bags full of kitchen waste for company…

Anyway. This narrative is not about the bookcase. This is supposedly about the coat hanger.

Returning to our friend the hanger. It easily sustained a large wool greatcoat and a grey silk scarf. Not much could be said for that coat hanger – it was rather stupid; either extremely beautiful or extremely ugly (and aren't they synonymous anyway?); a great aggravation to its neighbor, the infamous bookcase; and quite frankly just a big waste of space. However, it was strong. Oh yes, it was very strong indeed. The bookcase was jealous for a few minutes until it remember how much stronger IT was, as it had to support all those ridiculous textbooks.

Then the Inhabitant gained a friend.

The Inhabitant's new friend had no books, which was frankly a large disappointment to the bookcase. After all, the Inhabitant was reasonably intelligent and if his new cohabitant had no books, the bookcase did not believe that this new man deserved the Inhabitant. But the Inhabitant's new friend did have a coat.

The coat hook smiled smugly and accepted the extra burden with grace.

The bookcase was ecstatic. After all, there was almost always something on the coat hook now and the Inhabitant's friend was proving to be a good influence. The door was rarely slammed open now, and if it was, the coat protected the bookcase from a dent. The Old Woman who lived downstairs offered to put up another coat hook so the Inhabitant and his friend did not have to share, but the request was denied and the lone coat hook proudly kept its additional responsibility.

Life for everyone in 221B was good for years. The bookcase's dent did not grow, the coat hook kept at its tiring work with nary a complaint, and the Inhabitant began to laugh again for the first time since – well, neither the bookcase OR the coat hook could remember the Inhabitant ever laughing before.

But time is a funny thing. Things that once worked begin to lose their charm, new solutions come to light, old habits are lost and new ones are gained.

The bookcase had no idea as to why. But slowly, the coats stopped being hung up. The Inhabitant had always been messy, but now it was extreme. His scarf, coat, shoes, they were all scattered around the flat. The Inhabitant's friend removed his coat and kept it in his room. The coat hook was left barren, its intended purpose no longer relevant to the humans living in 221B, and gradually it was forgotten. The bookcase would have been smug if it hadn't been for the creeping sense of tension spreading through the flat like a virus.

Life in 221 Baker Street was no longer how it had once been. The Old Woman had passed away a few months ago, and the Inhabitant and his friend were not coping well with it. Their grief and anger and stress were all escalating. The flat was covered in holes - bullet holes in the living room wall, six fist-sized holes in the bedroom.

Two men who had been colleagues, friends, lovers, husbands, awoke and saw a stranger lying in bed next to them.

There was yelling. Oh, God, so much yelling. The bookcase felt a little apprehensive. It had grown fond of the Inhabitant's friend, and even more so of the Inhabitant. The coat hanger sat quietly and listened to the argument until the friend stormed out, down the stairs. The front door slammed behind him.

The tall, dark-haired man looked around for some way to relieve some of his frustration. His eyes fell on the door.

The bookcase cringed as the barren coat hanger pounded into its side with ten times as much force as it had ever done before. The wound was reopened, and the bookcase wondered sadly if it would ever heal now.

In the beginning, the hook whispered "Sorry" every time it hit the bookcase. But it happened so often that eventually, the coat hook didn't bother any more. It had never meant its kind words of apology anyway. They were a convention. That was all they had ever been and all they ever would be.

The fights were so frequent that the coat hanger rammed into the bookcase at least once a day. The dent deepened and transformed into a hole. The poor barren hook was not made for that kind of stress. The wood around it began to splinter. The screws started losing their grip. Slowly, slowly, slowly the coat hanger began to wobble. The point of impact on the bookcase began to vary. The bookcase was stressed to pieces, never knowing where the next assault would hit.

In a parody of order, the greatcoat and scarf began to be hung up on the hook once again – but it wasn't the same. The hook bowed under their weight. It couldn't sustain what it had once so easily held. Not any more. The screws holding it together had begun to wobble. Its world was falling down and the coat hook knew that it would smash into a million pieces when it finally hit the ground.

A defining characteristic of furniture is its love to gossip. And that was how the entire living room of 221B Baker Street found out the horrible truth – that the Inhabitant did not love his friend any longer.

The Old Woman had known, the sofa whispered. The sofa had belonged to the Old Woman, but when she had passed, the sofa had been carried upstairs to the flat that the bookcase belonged in. The sofa had seen the Inhabitant on the street holding another man's hand, smiling for another one. The sofa had seen the sadness in the Old Woman's eyes.

The downstairs doorjamb had said that was not all. The greasy Italian had known. The Government had known. Even the Inspector had known. And yet, they all had said nothing. They had not wanted to hurt the Inhabitant's friend by letting him know.

They ended up hurting him even more. Secrets cannot be kept forever, bad ones even more so than good ones.

The Inhabitant's friend found out in a fight. It was a fight about nothing and everything, no one and everyone. Every complaint, every flaw, every difference, both good and bad, they were all voiced. Or more accurately, screamed for the entirety of Baker Street to hear.

The door was slammed open over and over. The bookcase cringed (at least inwardly) after the fifteenth blow from the coat hanger. Hateful, hurtful things were said. The bookcase and coat hanger tried not to dwell on them. Furniture prefers to turn a blind eye to the bad, to only see the good in things and people. It should have realized that it is impossible to remain innocent in a world like this one.

Furniture does not have a concept of marriage. It either has all its parts, or it does not. It either hates its surroundings or tolerates them. It cannot sustain the idea that something would want to bind an extra entity to itself. Furniture has a set number of parts. It does not function with either less or more.

But even so, the bookcase knew that the identical gold and bronze bands on each man's left ring finger symbolized something. They were a part of the workings of the two men. The coat hook knew that when the friend took off his band and threw it down on the table – well, it knew that it wasn't good.

The friend left. He left his discarded part, left the Inhabitant, left everything, slamming the door behind him.

The coat hook swayed and fell off the door, rolling to rest at Sherlock's feet.


	3. Mirror

**I apologize profusely for the late update :( Life has gotten away from me. Last week I was in a production of the Nutcracker, which left no time to write, and I am supposed to leave for a month-long vacation in a week and haven't even started packing *cringes* But at last, it's here.  
>I was absolutely OVERWHELMED by your response to the last chapter. I screamed louder than I have ever screamed in my life when I saw my email inbox. Thank you, all who storyauthor alerted me or left reviews :) They mean more than I can say.  
>This chapter was written to many different songs, among them "Ghost" by Ingrid Michaelson and "Elegy" by Gabriel Fauré, but the song that I think describes this chapter best is "Lux Aeterna" by Clint Mansell. It is from the soundtrack to 'Requiem for a Dream' and an absolutely amazing combination of electronic music and string quartet. I urge you to look it up.<br>Disclaimer: I'll swap the contents of my pockets (a Burt's Bees pomegranate Chapstick, a hairclip, a Jolly Rancher wrapper, and a dime) for ownership of Sherlock. Whaddya think, BBC? No? Then I guess it's not mine.  
>Warnings: This chapter is not nice. It is angsty and sentimental and sappy and painful and it hurt me to write it, so it will probably hurt to read it. Unfortunately, things have to get worse before they can get better. I promise you all a happy ending, but to claw your way out of a hole like the one Sherlock is in does take time.<strong>

The mirror was dirty.

That should have been the first indication that something was wrong. John Watson kept a clean house and the mirror was never dirty like it was now. Bright red lipstick left over from an experiment on the frame, hand soap coating the hinges that let the mirror open out, toothpaste splatters on the glass itself.

The mirror was mounted on the doors to a medicine cabinet. In the eyes of a more pure mirror, the cabinet/mirror hybrid was far inferior, but to humans, anything multi-purpose is much more useful than a mirror that has one function – to reflect.

The hybrid mirror, who was neither less or more, had seen it all.

The tall, pale, dark-haired man had been along for so long. He never looked at himself in the mirror. If he somehow did, it was just for a second. Then he quickly turned away, a look of disgust contorting his perfectly sculpted features. The mirror couldn't understand why he couldn't look at himself. Mirrors have no concept of self-hatred. They are awfully naïve creatures. Their purpose is to watch, and to watch alone.

When the blond man came along, he never avoided his gaze. He faced himself grimly every day, his mouth set as she shaved the previous day's collection of stubble from his neck and jaw. The mirror didn't need to be told he was a soldier. It saw the fallen warrior in every inch of the blond man.

It was about when the soldier began to relax that the detective began sneaking glances at himself in the mirror. It was like he was afraid of getting caught, but every now and then he did meet his eyes and he smiled. Just a little bit. But it was a smile.

The mirror smiled with him.

Time wore on and on and the mirror saw the change in both men first-hand. The blond shed his defensive skin completely, the brunette looked in the mirror and saw himself looking back. They both relaxed and evolved day by day.

They loved to use the bathroom for several – ahem – _activities_. Half the time, the poor mirror felt as if it were intruding, and half the time it didn't care because it was just so damned HOT. There were several times when the mirror actually steamed up because of, well, the heat of things.

The two men had been together about a year when The Incident occurred. The mirror referred to it as The Incident because that was when everything changed in so many ways, both good and bad. They had just tumbled out of the shower, skin pink, lips swollen, pupils blown. The short one had paused, just for a second, in front of the mirror, but it was long enough for both the tall man and the mirror to read his expression.

Doubt.

The mirror's wooden heart ached for the poor man. It would have told him how much he meant to the taller man, if only mirrors could talk. It wanted to, too. The mirror saw how good he was for the tall man, how just plain good he was.

But the taller man did it for him.

He came up and wrapped his arms around the blond's waist from behind, kissed an already red and tender spot on his neck.

"You're quite the individual, John," he said.

And somehow, just somehow, the mirror knew that the tall man was telling John that he was beautiful.

...

The mirror never knew what happened to those two beautiful men.

It was gradual. Subtle. No one but a mirror would ever have seen change as early on as it did, but a mirror's primary function is to notice things. So it noticed them. It noticed when the military straightness began to return to the blond's spine, when the brunette began to avoid his own eyes.

It noticed as the light began to leave the tall man's eyes and was replaced by another emotion that the mirror knew, but wished it didn't. Recognized, but wished it hadn't.

It was guilt.

Guilt belongs in the eyes of the detective for only one reason.

...

The mirror heard the yelling for what it was. It was the first one to see the problem. The first one whose heart broke. It cried for those two men, those two who weren't who they should be any more. It wept tears of oil that dripped down its hinges, landed one by one in the sink. John scrubbed and scrubbed at them but the stains left there never went away.

The mirror didn't know what actually happened. It heard the yelling, and it heard the door slam. It didn't know to what extent things had gone wrong until the next morning. That next morning, the dark-haired man walked in and the mirror saw it written in his face, in his body. It heard it in the tears he cried while he showered, so secret that the mirror wondered if the detective knew that he himself had shed them.

John was gone.

The mirror took it all deep inside. Mirrors do not complain. They bear pain, and they bear lots of it. Every bit of darkness in people will undoubtedly be shouldered by a mirror somewhere. They take it all silently. They feel their agony alone, and when it is too much, they shatter. They just shatter into a thousand tiny pieces and they never have to feel pain again. They die screaming, mirrors.

But this mirror was strong. It was determined to survive. It saw the bathroom deteriorate. It felt it all, heard it all. It saw the needles, saw the tall man roll up his sleeve and inject himself daily. It saw the anger and hate creep back into those fathomless grey eyes. It saw the darkness beginning to grow deep inside of the detective and was afraid for him.

Oh, he kept living. But he had no heart. The mirror knew from seeing his eyes every day that he was just a shell. It also knew that a shell is fragile. If you squeeze it too hard, apply pressure to the wrong places, it will shatter into a million pieces in your palm.

The more he hurt, the more beautiful he was. But it was the wrong kind of beauty.

He came in shaking. Everything in the room held its breath and prayed that he wouldn't snap. Not here, not now. He strode over on those long legs and opened the mirror, stared inside at the empty wooden shelves.

In his palm was a wedding band.

He reverently placed the band on the shelf and closed the mirror, then bent over and put his hands on either side of the sink basin to steady himself. Tears were streaming down his cheeks; he was shaking all over. The mirror saw what nothing else did. It saw that he was balanced on the very edge of a cliff. The littlest thing could push him either way and once he fell, he would never be able to climb all the way back up.

He was shaking and crying and he couldn't stop. He couldn't catch his breath. The mirror wanted to reach out, to hold him, to stop him from going too far and never coming back up again, but it couldn't. All it could do was watch and wait.

The detective looked up at himself. Looked at his tear-stained face. Looked in his eyes.

The mirror saw what was going to happen before it did.

His eyes were not human. They were raw. They were primal. The pupils were blown, the irises were stripped of everything that makes a man with only a horrible gleam left in its place.

They were the eyes of somebody who was insane. Insane from anger, insane from self-hatred, insane from grief.

And that was it.

Humans have to be able to look at themselves. As soon as they can't meet their eyes, they will snap. Mirrors may be naïve, but there is no creature on this earth that is more vain than the human being.

A fresh wave of tears rolled down his cheeks. His fist connected with the mirror.

Reflected in the shards of glass scattered on the floor was an utterly broken man, curled up in a ball and sobbing.

Nobody ever came to help him.


	4. Phones

**Well, I did it. I'm in Florida! (It only took a mere 24 BLOODY HOURS to get there. But I did it.) I was originally planning to post this chapter once I reached an airport, but it wasn't ready in Seattle and Atlanta tried to make me pay for wireless Internet access, which, as a student, I really can't afford. So. I'm posting this at about 11 PM Florida time, and then I'm off to bed. Sherlock might be able to do it, but I simply cannot stay awake for 36 hours straight with nothing but a 16 oz mocha for help.  
>Written to "Paper Aeroplane" by KT Tunstall.<br>Disclaimer: Nein, nein, it's not mine. (Blame that on the lack of sleep.)  
>Warnings: This is angsty. Again. Please bear with me, guys :( I know it's not fun, and that I've made about 13 people cry. But I swear to God that Chapter 5 is going to serve up the fluff and crack you all need. Also, this time there is no mirror abuse, no breakdowns, and no emo activity by Sherlock. Just slight tears and texting.<strong>

Phones.

Phones are everywhere.

Phones ringing, phones beeping, phones chirping, vibrating, tweeting, blaring, singing.

With your phone, you can tell your partner to go by the store and pick up some milk on his way home because the last carton got spoiled by the human fingers disintegrating in it and – well, he didn't need to know about that part. You can call Mummy and tell her that it was most certainly Mycroft's fault that the Swiss parliamentary elections had gone the wrong way, not yours, no matter what he says. You can look up the most wanted assassin in the Czech Republic in a matter of seconds and know the weather in the Scotch highlands at the push of a button.

Phones are wonderful things.

They are so integral to our lifestyle today and we don't even realize it half the time. It's like the aftermath a power cut – we take it for granted until it's not there any more.

We don't realize how important they are to us.

And Sherlock's wasn't ringing.

…

Sherlock had a Blackberry and it irritated him. It claimed to be a 'smart' phone, but really, how smart could it be if it couldn't block texts sent from his brother? He suspected that Mycroft had somehow tampered with the device. He simply couldn't comprehend why else he would have spent so much money on a phone that ended up doing so little.

It did function, however. Badly (at least to Sherlock Holmes) but it functioned. At this precise moment, however, it was not functioning. Also known as ringing.

It wasn't doing much of anything, really. It lay there on the coffee table, waiting for a call or for the battery to die. (The latter option was the most likely at this point.) Its owner was lying in his tattered old dressing gown and pyjama pants on the couch, sunk in his first real deep sleep since – well, since he had ruined everything. Since John had left.

It had been three weeks.

Three weeks of tears and burned toast and broken mirrors, of short tempers and slammed doors and Bartok violin concertos. They had been the longest and most agonizing three weeks of Sherlock's life.

His phone had not rung once.

Not from Lestrade, or from Molly, or Dimmock, or Angelo, or Moriarty with a new game, or Mycroft, even. He would welcome a call from MYCROFT if it just meant his phone would ring.

John hadn't called and he wasn't going to. It was obvious to everyone, even Sherlock. It was completely, incontrovertibly Sherlock's fault. Everything was Sherlock's fault. But there was still that slight prick of hope, and the phone remained on and vigilant, waiting for a call that wouldn't come.

…

John's phone was fancy, relatively new, took good photographs, had a large memory capacity, all of that. Harry had not only wanted him to stay in touch; she had actually gone through her collection of discarded phones to pick out the fanciest. John had thought that had been very sweet of her (or as sweet as Harry ever got) and as a testimonial to the tiny thread of sibling relations they had left, he had refused all offers of a new phone.

Yes, it was a gorgeous phone, but it had been discarded for a reason.

The ringer didn't work.

This had irritated John beyond belief when he had first received the phone. The phone had not been expecting the heavy amount of cursing and had gone into an almighty sulk (refusing to charge, making the '8' key malfunction, mysteriously deleting contacts, the usual) but after the fifth barrage of insults in a day the phone had come to one of two conclusions: either John had serious anger problems or he didn't really mean it. The phone accepted the second and it and its new owner began a strictly professional relationship. John still didn't like the ringer problem, and the phone despised how hard he pressed the keys, but they tolerated each other. They could work together.

John had never really seen the absence of a ringer like he did now. As a benefit, that is. Vibrations are much easier to ignore than ringtones, after all. You can pretend you didn't feel it. Or pretend it never existed in the first place.

The phone didn't vibrate anyway.

John is a calm man by nature. He does things coolly, quickly, efficiently. He possessed this characteristic even before he went to Afghanistan, and overseas it was amplified tenfold. He doesn't usually let his emotions get in the way if he has work to do. He and Sherlock are much more similar in that regard than either will ever admit.

But even extremes have exceptions.

It was almost 1 AM when he pulled said phone out of his pocket and stared at it. He hit buttons until he came to the text message menu, to the inbox. Which had an (0) next to it.

He was crying, the phone realized. Not loudly, never loudly for the soldier. But there were tears rolling down his cheeks and one had definitely just splattered on the brightly lit phone screen.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the barren kitchen table and pressed the phone into his forehead. "God, Sherlock," he whispered, "how could you do this to me?"

His voice cracked as he broke. The phone was pressed even harder into his forehead as he cried.

…

Sherlock's phone missed John's phone. It just missed it.

They had shared a nightstand for longer than either could remember. It had become a nighttime ritual – their owners would come into the room and place their phones next to each other on the nightstand, then the phones would observe the two men as they slept or talked or had very loud sex. The phones always sniggered about the last one and would gossip late into the night about their idiotic yet lovable owners. Every morning, both alarms went off – John's at 7:45 and Sherlock's at 8. John's alarm never illicited more than a grunt from the bed's occupants (which Sherlock's phone found hysterical) but Sherlock's behaved rather like its owner: loudly. It wasn't an alarm. It was a foghorn, a smoke detector. It was an air raid siren, warning that the apocalypse was finally approaching. It always received one of two responses: John rattling off an enormous string of curses as Sherlock hurdled him in an attempt to turn off the irritating thing (which usually ended in the phone being hurled against the wall by a frustrated consulting detective); or one of the bed's occupants would lean over and attack the other with kisses until they both tumbled out of bed and raced each other to the shower, the phone left blaring behind them.

The phones missed those times. They missed laughing together about their owners. They missed each other, plain and simple. They wanted the other one back by their side.

Both knew it wasn't going to happen.

Time wore on and on. John's phone had just passed the 4-year mark and was rapidly nearing the end of its life. Its only thought was if it would ever see Sherlock's phone again.

Sherlock's phone had been counting the days and knew its elderly comrade wouldn't be around for much longer. It was in a constant state of torment. It would have given anything in the world just to spend one more night laughing with its friend.

It had been two months since John Watson walked out the door of 221B Baker Street.

The sun rose that day and bathed John's new flat in a golden glow. The phone was lying idly on the kitchen table as its owner made himself toast and tea. It could barely even hold a charge any more, but John wasn't letting it go that easily. John was beyond furious with Sherlock, it was true, but he couldn't throw away that phone. He just couldn't. As soon as that phone was gone, Sherlock would never be able to contact him again and John, kind, strong, John, who was hurting in the worst way possible, still didn't want that to happen.

The phone lay there, anchored to the wall by its lifeline, reminiscing of its glorious past days, when the unthinkable happened.

It buzzed.

…

Sherlock drummed his long, pale fingers nervously on the table. His phone was clutched in a death grip in his right hand. He didn't know if he was about to fix his ruined life or had just made the worst mistake known to mankind.

His phone didn't give a damn, as long as John's phone came back.

They sat there for ten minutes, twenty, thirty. The phone counted every agonizing second and prayed to an unknown deity that John would respond.

The unknown deity must have been somewhat of an all right bloke. The phone buzzed in Sherlock's palm.

Sherlock opened the text, his hands trembling very slightly. The phone urged the now useful deity to a) get his idiot owner to read the text faster and b) to have his owner NOT drop the phone on the floor, because the kitchen linoleum? That hurt.

Sherlock read the text. Read it again.

Phones receive thousands of messages, but seldom read any of them. They are sentimental devices that become quickly attached to their owners and rarely dream of violating their privacy. Their duty is to serve their owner to their best of their ability, until they no longer can and are crudely tossed away to die in the back of a dumpster. Phones, however, do not care about their final resting places. Knowing that they have done the best they can is more than enough for them.

Sherlock's phone didn't need to read that text to know that it was bad.

A single tear had slid down the owner's cheek.

**To: John **

I need to talk to you.

SH

**To: Sherlock Holmes**

Sherlock, you've said more than enough.

I love you, you idiot, but I don't trust you. Please stay out of my life.

John.

**I apologize again for the angst *cringes and runs to hide under the table*. Chapter 5 will be different. Promise. You have liberty to come after me with an axe if I give you any more angst.  
>Anyway, I forgot to post this at the beginning of the chapter…<br>There are three ladies on who deserve more recognition than I can give them: haveacreamteaonme, for inspiring me in about sixteen thousand different ways; akisura12, for silently favoriting everything I've done; and especially storm101, for saying that I could do it from the very start. I wouldn't know you if I walked headlong into you on the street, but does that matter? You guys are the greatest and you have my utter and complete thanks :) Also, the word 'incontrovertibly' is compliments of my bestie Eliza. This is not the last you'll hear of her…;)**


	5. Ladles

**This chapter is a Christmas present for my sister/friend Eliza, who I have known since I was 3 days old. For some reason, Eliza has formed the strange neural pathway that whenever I mention my personal god Benedict Cumberbatch, her first and foremost unconscious reaction is "Ladles?" God knows how or why. So as soon as I told her about my new story from the POVs of objects, she said, "You have to write a ladle one." And here it is. Merry Christmas, hon!  
>Written originally to my siblings tearing each others' throats out and that annoying loud hum of the engine that you experience in an airplane, but revised to "Pieces of You" by Jewel and "Tomb of Liegia" by Team Sleep.<br>Disclaimer: I can't even be bothered to buy music anymore – I borrow CDs from the library and download them to my computer. So, really, do you think I own Sherlock?  
>Warnings: This is strangeness, pure and simple. It doesn't exactly fit with the story, but then again, it totally does. (Also, you all get a reprieve from the incessant angst.) I hope you enjoy :)<strong>

It is a defining characteristic of a human whether or not they own a ladle.

Ladles, after all, are beyond useful. Not only can they serve up a variety of soups and stews easily, due to their larger scoop size, but if a thief were to enter your flat you could smack them on the head and render them unconscious. They are also invaluable when it comes to experiments that involve comparing the amount of water in a sheep liver versus a human one, but not many people have a sheep liver lying around their home, let alone a human one.

DI Lestrade owned a ladle. It was a very sturdy utensil of moderate size that had been used for almost every task you could possibly think off. The ladle preferred serving up soup, naturally, but this is a very cruel world we live in and ladles cannot always get what they want. It had unclogged three different sinks, been used as a boat for a doll belonging to Lestrade's youngest daughter, removed chunks of fat from the pancreas gland of an 80-year-old man, and visited almost fourteen different countries. It was handsome, strong, and would probably become a family heirloom, a fact of which it was intensely proud of. It was a versatile thing and had just a bit of a swollen head, knowing that Lestrade would always count on it during times of need.

However, that same indomitable ladle was very nearly taken out by something very simple indeed: the annual Scotland Yard Christmas party.

The ladle was ferried over to the Yard in an enormous pot of corn chowder, which was personally one of the ladle's favorite soups to dish out. The broth did not have a tendency to slop everywhere, but yet was not an unseemly glue-like consistency. The chowder itself was fabulous stuff and, the best yet, did not have to be kept at ridiculously high temperatures. The heat factor was of extreme importance to the ladle: it was made of copper, which, when left in a warm liquid, heated up rather rapidly and could potentially burn the next person to pick it up. (Let it be noted that the ladle didn't really care all that much about the welfare of humans – it just hated being on the receiving end of the insults that Lestrade fired off when he sustained a burn.)

The ladle normally loved social gatherings like the one at the Yard. It was regarded as the informant of the kitchen, and all the gossip it encountered at potlucks and parties was enough to keep the kitchen buzzing for weeks.

Yes, the ladle usually adored potlucks. It did NOT adore this one. It was, without a doubt, one of the most awkward gatherings the ladle had ever been to. Ever. Why, you may ask? There was nothing wrong with the food and the other utensils weren't snobby (far from it, in fact).

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson had BOTH been invited.

Ladles know everything. And then some more. And then, goddammit, a little bit more than that. You can't keep a secret from a ladle, so don't even try. They are highly social things and their primary recreational activity is gossiping. So the ladle knew ALL about the Sherlock and John saga, oh yes, it did. And it had made sure the entire kitchen did, too. The ladle also knew what most other people in the room didn't – that Sherlock's partner-in-adultery was at this party, too.

The ladle had no idea if the guest list for the party had been someone's idea of a joke or just supremely bad planning. It did not think this could get conceivably any more awkward.

And then the universal law of irony was proved and the whole thing multiplied in awkwardness times ten.

…

It wasn't really anyone's fault that things turned out the way they did. It was just that Anderson didn't want to stand next to Donovan and Molly had elbowed her way to the front of the queue because she saw red velvet cake at the very end of the line and wanted a piece, and then Lestrade's little girl pulled her sister's hair and the other girl turned around and hit her, so Lestrade had to step out of line to settle an argument, and then someone backed into someone else's car and Dimmock went off to try and settle the matter and then the queue was left rearranged so that one irritated army doctor and one extremely embarrassed consulting detective were standing one right behind the other.

The ladle cringed and considered hiding under the table.

Sherlock's ears were both so red they looked like they were in danger of bursting into flame and John looked as if he'd had his cervical vertebrae replaced with a steel rod.

Yes, this had been a patently bad idea. And did we mention they were standing right in front of the pot of corn chowder?

The ladle attempted to shrink and be as unnoticeable as possible, which, as you may have guessed, did not work. The two men were both so high strung that if someone so much as sneezed unexpectedly, one would burst out into hysterical laughter and the other into a flood of tears. John's hands were shaking so badly he could barely ladle soup into his bowl and about half the ladle-full spilt all over the floor. Sherlock was hanging back as far as possible and had apparently run into the intense dilemma over whether he should have carrots or broccoli. Eventually, Dimmock (who had returned from the car situation) prodded Sherlock in the back and he stumbled forward rather quickly.

The ladle had really no idea how it happened. From everything it had heard, Sherlock was a rather graceful man, not a klutz. But then again, he was more stressed than he'd ever been in his life and attempting not to be taken as a madman, so…anyway, Sherlock slipped on the chowder, falling rather spectacularly and smashing his head into the table leg. Hard.

There were varied reactions from the collection of Yarders. Molly blinked several times, Donovan sniggered, Anderson rolled his eyes and let out a long string of profanity. Dimmock turned red and Lestrade turned purple. His little girls took advantage of the distraction and ran off to raid the dessert table.

Other than that, it was totally silent.

Sherlock pushed himself up and put a hand to the back of his head. It came away sticky and covered in something red and wet that the ladle instinctively knew was not cranberry sauce.

Lestrade passed a hand over his brow.

The ladle watched attentively as John tended to Sherlock, who had apparently managed to sustain a mild concussion and split his head open just from hitting it on the table leg (it needed 7 stitches). The rest of the room, which had also been observing the drama unfolding before them, quickly turned away after Donovan realized that the murderous glare Sherlock was giving his audience could be roughly interpreted to mean _Piss off_.

John was stitching up the genius's skull with that same military straightness in his spine and nothing to suggest that he was doing this for anything other than a sense of duty. As for Sherlock, he was rather pointedly looking everywhere except at his former partner. The ladle was very disappointed that they were not making any steps towards reconciling. (It also knew that if it didn't report back with a happy ending, the entire kitchen would be in uproar.)

The ladle was just about to give up on the wayward pair and focus on the love affair between two of the new PCs, Jilly and Rory, when something of great interest happened. Oh yes, very interesting indeedy.

Sherlock winced as John tied off the thread in the back of his skull. That slip had admittedly not been one of his more graceful endeavors, and had served absolutely no purpose, except –

John was touching him. John was closer to him than he had been in weeks. Sherlock's entire brain seemed to freeze up with this new bit of information. He had absolutely no clue what to say.

_Goddammit, say something!_

"Thank you."

It was a whisper. A ghost of a whisper. A breath so soft that both John and the ladle almost missed it. The ladle nearly flung itself out of the Crock Pot in elation, but restrained itself just in time to see a small smile appear on John's face as he looked Sherlock in the eye for the first time in five months.

"You are most certainly welcome, you big idiot." He stood up and went back to his table, but – had he really…? Yes, he had just squeezed Sherlock's hand.

Oh, the kitchen was going to LOVE this.


	6. Pen, Part I

**After an afternoon involving bat-dog hybrids, a 10 mile bike ride, rogue golf balls, Dippin' Dots, Christmas carols played on the bagpipes, ocean views, expired hams, and frogs who tried to die with glory in front of Hummer H3s, I collapsed in the cramped backseat of my grandparents' Dodge van and said "Jesus Christ in a cowrie shell! I am sick of this Southern insanity! I must retreat!" And to do so, I wrote as we navigated I-95 for 2 and 1/2 hours of our lives.  
>This is Part 1 of a 2-part chapter. The public's reception of Chapter 5 was absolutely fabulous (thank you all, you lovely people :)) and the main question was "WHO WAS SHERLOCK'S ILLICIT LOVER? WHO?" So here you go, ladies. Meet Anton.<br>Written to Coldplay's new album Mylo Xyloto, which is not good writing music so much as good driving music.  
>Disclaimer: If I owned Sherlock, the only thing you would be able to get out of me for at least six months would be a very loud "EEEEEEEEEE!", NOT over a thousand words about a ballpoint pen.<br>Warnings: None…?**

The pen was, to be put bluntly, a piece of crap. It was a generic ballpoint pen, the kind with the pointy plastic cap in a vibrant shade of red, black, or blue; the kind that you can buy an 8-pack of for a pound in any self-respecting newsagent or Tesco's.

The reason Anton Walden Doyle had kept that pen for so long was that it had never failed him. You could buy him fancy pens, big pens, pens with purple ink, pens that looked like pencils – and they worked marvelously. But inevitably, after about two weeks they would just stop working. And that ballpoint pen didn't stop working. It worked in a mediocre manner, but it worked. That was all Anton cared about – that it always worked and that it continued to do so.

The pen was not impressed with Anton's idea of ownership. Not even remotely impressed.

Anton was just beginning his internship at St. Bart's when the pen came under his possession. The pen had formerly belonged to a tiny Basque woman named Estrella, who had immigrated to Britain to find work as an R.N. The pen had rather liked Estrella – she was kind to the pen and never flung it into purses or pockets, where it would be scratched by keys and coins and squashed by notebooks or, heaven forbid, the remains of a takeout lunch.

Anton had been in the midst of his first job shadow when his mentor, a fairly plain woman named Sarah, had turned around and instructed him to write something down concerning doses of morphine. Anton, who had snapped the tip off his last pen purely by accident, looked around and just happened to see the pen lying on Estrella's abandoned clipboard.

The only thing the pen remembered from its abduction was confusion, followed by an overwhelming sense of terror. Pens generally do not like owners who abduct them from their previously good lives and induct them into new existences without pen cups or union breaks. (Well, would you?) The pen found itself oppressed and overworked under the ownership of the tyrannical Anton. It was used nonstop and at the end of the day, where it had been tenderly placed to rest on the desk under Estrella, the pen was now tossed unceremoniously into a coat pocket, where it was scratched by keys and kept up at all hours of the night by the raucous partying of the coins. The pen considered several times just draining itself of all remaining ink in a fit of pique. But then, the pen reasoned, it would be thrown out, and there is nothing more terrifying to a pen than the garbage can – which leads, eventually, to the enormous flames of the incinerator at the municipal dump.

So the pen stayed enslaved and very unhappy for almost a year. Until Anton met the Other, the pen had no hope that its life might change.

As it turned out, Anton's mentor Sarah was very good friends with another doctor named John. John was married to a man (the Other, as the pen called him) who was without a doubt the most hauntingly beautiful creature Anton had ever seen.

Hope doesn't spring eternal. But in that pen, as soon as it saw the way Anton looked at John's husband, when it saw the way the Other looked back, a small flame of something came back into the pen's ink-stained heart. It saw that the Other could be a way out.

So it didn't avert its eyes. It just watched, watched the whole thing until its mind nearly exploded.

The pen was the witness to their crimes.

…

The pen doubted that it would be ever called forward in court to testify, but if it was, it knew it would. It liked the Other well enough (but not enough, you will notice, to address him by his actual name), but felt no sense of loyalty to him. And as for Anton – pshaw! The sooner that dictator got locked up, the better.

But yes. The pen was the witness. It saw everything, heard everything. It saw the notes that were slipped back and forth right under the noses of John and Sarah. It saw the chaste kisses that soon turned into hungry, frenzied things. It saw them rip the Other's shirt (John's favorite, the purple silk one) right in half in their haste to remove it. The pen saw the tears on the Other's cheeks, heard him cry the wrong name when he reached the tipping point.

It was three months later when they were kissing and the Other pulled back, just a little bit. They were so close that their lips brushed when they talked. "Anton," he whispered, "Anton, this is wrong."

Anton's grip on the Other's curls tightened, pulling him back in. "Ssh," he whispered, tracing the man's porcelain features with his other hand. "Let me take care of you." Whatever the Other was going to say was cut off as Anton bit down on his lip. Hard.

The pen didn't care that what Anton and the Other were doing was wrong. It really didn't.

You may think that pens feel loyalty or shame, such as some other objects. They don't. They go through a series of owners, some bad, some good, but they are never really bound and loyal to them. Pens are too cynical, far too smart to be just simply enslaved like some lesser objects. They simply don't care. Their welfare is the first priority.

In the Other, the pen saw an escape. A way out of the hell that its life had become. It didn't care if the affair kept up, it didn't care if the Other's marriage got broken up, it didn't care if John came round and shot Anton right between the eyes with a double-barreled shotgun. All it knew was that when the Other walked out of Anton's flat for the last time, the pen wanted to be in his pocket. And it would do anything to get itself there.

The pen thought it had all the time in the world to think up ways to make this happen. It was wrong.

John found out.

Everything fell to hell.

…

The Other came round one last time. He sent Anton down the road to order takeout from that Thai place on the corner. The Other didn't even like Thai food – he was surprised that Anton still didn't know that.

As soon as the door was shut behind Anton, the Other grabbed the pen and a pad of paper off the counter and wrote:

_Anton,_

_This is my fault. _

_This was a mistake, I was leading you on, and I never really wanted this. I love John and now I've hurt him and I – god, I can't do this without him. I really can't. I was an idiot and you need to forget me._

_I'm sorry._

_Sherlock_

The Other left the pad of paper on the counter and looked around the shabby little flat for the last time. Then he stuck the pen in his pocket and slipped out the back door into the noisy, stifling London night.

In his pocket, next to the mobile and a few assorted pence coins, the pen smiled. It didn't matter, none of it mattered.

It was out of there. And nothing – nothing the Other put it through – would make it upset like Anton had.

**Yeah. To be continued and Part 2 will address – wait! No, I can't say. Spoilers XD But I'm sure you can guess. It's okay, it'll go up tomorrow. And then I'm off to Panama – and I won't be able to update until sometime in the 1****st**** week of January. Yes, I know. But hell, new Sherlock comes out January 1****st****! Who needs fan fic when you're gonna get the real thing, you lucky people?  
>I forgot to address this in my author's notes up top, but Snowracer? You wrote a gorgeous review and I really wanted to thank you personally, but you've got your PM service turned off. So thanks, hon, that review made my day just sparkly all over :)<strong>


	7. Pen, Part II

**Gah, sorry for the late update. Life went ballistimicus, then the chapter wouldn't speak to me, then it DID but needed a ton of work, then those series 2 trailers came out and I was happily flailing around for a week, and THEN I found out that I actually WILL have Internet on the 1****st**** of January and as such, can somehow get my hands on some, well, new material ;) So yeah. I'm very sorry indeedy.  
>Anyway. Wrote the first draft of this in bed. While my brother jumped on the bed. And my mum tried to work the shower and ended up flooding the bathroom. My dad tried to go buy groceries and the only two words he knows in Spanish are "hola" and "cerveza", so he eventually had to call me and ask how to say "Where's the cheese?" And to top it all off, my sister spent the night screaming like she was being murdered by Moriarty and attacking flies with a tea bag. My family is a wee bit dysfunctional, can you tell?<br>Snowracer! I'm mentioning you in the A/N again! XD Your comments are all so lovely. You are really such a sweet person :) thank you for all the hugs and sparkles you are unconsciously giving me. (Also – your suggestion has been noted and acted upon. FINALLY. It took forever, I'm so lazy *guilty giggle*)  
>Written to "Frost" by Rachael Sage.<br>Disclaimer: Alas, poor Yorick, I owneth not.  
>Warnings: Say whaaaaa?<strong>

The pen was tired.

It had been taken to the Other's flat and had settled in quite nicely there. Its place of residency was the mantelpiece, where the Other had first flung the pen. Its comrades were two photographs, a skull, a paring knife, some paperbacks, and a lot of other assorted clutter.

But oh, it was tired.

The pen was in such a convenient location that every time the Other needed to make of something, he grabbed the pen. The pen had been used regularly during its time with Estrella and practically abused under Anton, and now its reserves of ink were dwindling rapidly. Ink is a pen's mind, blood, inner organs, everything that keeps it alive. A pen can replenish its ink three times but after the third, all it can do is wait and hope that their owner doesn't need to use it that often. The third time had come and gone almost a month ago and now the ink was steadily going down lower and lower in the barrel.

The pen was so tired that it didn't realize something was wrong.

Obviously, there was a large problem residing in the flat of 221B Baker Street. The pen knew this. But the pen did not realize just how great the problem was for far too long. It was too tired.

One day, the paring knife nudged the pen and whispered, "Do you think he's all right?"

The pen looked at the Other, sprawled on the couch with one arm thrown up over his face. He wasn't thrashing about and screaming like he usually did, but he was mumbling something in his sleep that the pen couldn't make out. He gradually got louder until he yelled, "JOHN! I'm sorry!" He rolled over, away from the mantelpiece, but not before the pen saw the tears rolling down his cheeks.

"I don't think he is," the pen whispered back.

"I wish there was something we could do," the skull said sadly. She was rather fond of both the Other and John and hated to see either of them hurting.

"I doubt it," the wedding photo said wryly, and that was the end of that conversation.

The pen was aware that the Other had made an enormous, unforgiveable mistake. It wasn't quite sure how humans went about fixing mistakes like that – after all, pens do not form attachments of any sort, let alone romantic attachments. They are creatures of cynicism and intense rationality, and do not see any benefit in becoming romantically involved. It is a hassle and has negative effects on one if something goes wrong, so pens have adapted to exist without it.

But pens do also have their own share of problems. And they, as annoyingly intelligent creatures, know that the only way to fix a mistake is to talk it over.

…

The Other has never been a master of communication. He does not do those pesky things called 'feelings' and he CERTAINLY does not discuss them with his ex-husband.

Which is precisely why he wrote them down instead.

The Other put the period at the end of his last sentence, scanned his work, and passed the notebook and pen across the room to John, who was currently sitting on the sofa.

The pen had just filled four pages, front and back, with writing that bypassed all logical thinking centers and came straight from the small portion of the Other devoted to feelings. It was absolutely exhausted. Its ink was running to a dangerously low level and the result was a fatigue that penetrated to its very core.

John was taking his own sweet time reading the Other's writing, too. The Other was getting increasingly fidgety – or as fidgety as he ever got. His long, pale fingers were drumming on the arm of his chair, gradually speeding up faster and faster.

The entire room was nervous, some objects more so than others. The paring knife looked over, shrugged, and went back to its work of slowly wiggling its way down into the hard wood that the mantelpiece was constructed of. A physics textbook fell off the bookcase and several little paperbacks giggled. The skull would have chewed its fingernails completely off at this point if it had any to chew.

The pen just hoped that it would not be thrown away, no matter what happened. It had seen the contents of the Baker Street rubbish bin and had no desire whatsoever to join them.

This was the deciding moment. This was when the pieces could be painstakingly glued back together again – or when the little structure left could shatter into atoms and fall.

(The pen would not normally have put it so poetically, of course, but as it was feeling rather melodramatic and a little discouraged with its current plight, it decided to plumb its artistic depths as much as possible.)

Finally John licked his lips.

Picked up the pen.

And started to write.

The pen clung jealously to the ink it had left. It wanted to stay alive rather badly – it knew that it must come to an end sometime. It just preferred that the aforementioned end would come tomorrow.

This was, of couse, a completely unrealistic proposition. These were the last few minutes the pen would spend as a coherent, thinking object, and the rest of the room knew it. The entirety of Baker Street was a bit concerned in one way or another about what the pen's fate would eventually be, once all its ink ran out and it lost any awareness it had left.

Pens do not have much say in their fates. All they can do is roll. Many a time, in favor of being thrown away, a pen has rolled off the back of a desk or bookshelf and fallen down to rest under the radiator, never to be seen again. It is a sort of assisted suicide for those who wish to know their final resting place.

John finally finished writing and passed the notebook and pen back to the Other. The tension in the room was positively electric by this time.

Then he leaned back in his chair.

The entire room – no, the entire flat – sighed with relief at John's actions. The paperbacks giggled again and were walloped by another textbook for being too loud. The skull burst into tears and one of the photographs nudged her, whispering, "Shh! It's not over yet!"

The Other quickly scribbled something very messy (and very large, the pen thought) and handed the notebook and pen back to John.

The Bunsen burner ignited all on its own from the suspense and the teakettle and milk jug rushed to its aid. It really was surprising the Other and John had not yet noticed that the flat was not at peace, but then again, we must cut them some slack. They are humans.

John read the message (he had to squint a little, and even then he had some difficulty in making sense of the Other's handwriting) and, using the last few drops of ink in the pen, wrote nine words. Nine little words that had all the sway in the world.

The notebook realized something was wrong with the listless pen. "Hey," it whispered a bit frantically, "stay with us, you hear me?"

The pen wasn't planning on going anywhere, as a matter of fact. It wanted to see how the Other would react to John's latest statements. So it used every little bit of strength it had left to stay awake and alert, stay conscious. Just a few minutes more and it would be able to leave happily. It wanted to see what was going to happen, goddammit!

What it saw was the almost imperceptible smirk on John's face, the furrowing of the Other's brow as he read the note.

Then the Other's entire face relaxed and he smiled. Really smiled, for the first time in – who knew how long? Four weeks? Four months? A year?

It didn't matter. He was smiling.

The wedding photograph nearly flung itself over the edge of the mantelpiece in its ecstasy and was just barely caught in time by a paper clip that had, up till then, been busy holding a case file together. The case file attempted not to fall to bits, but too late.

The pen smiled and then sighed. The world was beginning to blur before it; darkness was creeping in on all sides.

It didn't want to be thrown away. After all it had seen, all it had done, it didn't want to rot away in a bin and then be moved to a landfill.

So it used what little strength it had left and rolled.

Rolled off the notebook, who whispered, "Good luck!" Past a mug of tea and several discarded nicotine patches. Off the edge of the end table and under the chair.

Nobody ever saw that pen again. But it became the legend of every object in Baker Street, not for its virtues, not for its contribution to the flat's community, but what it had written.

Left alone on the notebook page in John's spiky handwriting was:

_Sod it._

_ I love you._

_ I'm not going anywhere._


	8. Kettle

**Whilst I was revising this, a giant wasp flew in through the eaves of our rental house and starting chasing my siblings around the room. And I do mean a giant wasp, not quite of Doctor Who proportions, but still PRETTY DAMN BIG for a regular wasp. So my dad finally sprayed out the entire bottle of bug dope to incapacitate the thing and then proceeded to valiantly slay it with the broom, my sister went and had a funeral for the unfortunate creature even though the stinger was approximately the size of her index finger and the bee itself could probably have killed her in an instant, my mum opened all the windows AND turned on all the fans to fumigate the place, and what did I do? Grab a gas mask (I so wish) and keep writing. Unshakeable fangirl, that's me.  
>I have a definite plan for the rest of this fic. And in my language, 'definite plan' means an imminent ending. I have LOVED writing this but it is time to move on. That said, this is not the last chapter. I'm looking at an ending date sometime in the next couple weeks, definitely after I return to Alaska, taking all factors into account. (Including the ridiculous amount of time it took me to write this chapter.)<br>Written to a lot of music, but really belongs to "Jezebel" by Iron & Wine.  
>Disclaimer: In my delusional state caused from accidentally inhaling three times the amount of bug spray fumes one should ever inhale, well, maybe in that drifty dreamy limbo land I'll own Sherlock.<br>Warnings: Grievous injury of a sponge. And the word "shit".**

Sherlock? ROMANTIC? Who told you that?

If someone did, please divulge whom. He will have to go round to their house and possibly punch their faces in. No, he is not romantic. Not in the very least. It was a bit difficult, really, for him to show his appreciation of John, owing to the fact that he hadn't the faintest clue what to do.

However, let us not forget that Sherlock is brilliant. He knows what John likes (on almost every level) and to make John happy, well, it must be only a matter of doing those things he likes without being asked, right? And Sherlock knew very well that the two things that annoyed John the most (that he could control, that is) were the experiments stored in household objects and the state of the flat, which more often than not looked as if someone had been testing homemade bombs in there. So he set out to rectify those faults.

The teakettle had to work very hard to contain herself once the collection of eardrums was finally removed from her belly. She believed that a teakettle's purpose in life was to make tea, and perhaps, if its owner was threatened by thieves or tax collectors or the like, to be filled with water and dropped on the attacker's head from the top of a stair banister. But the last option was really an exception.

The teakettle was a very mothering sort of creature and, after the death of the lovely woman who had lived downstairs, had taken it upon herself to look after her boys. She didn't mind the eardrums, not really. She was happy as long as they didn't bicker about trivial things and tried to return home before midnight each night. Thinking back on it, she really did harbor a soft spot for those boys. She was helpless to their charms, immune to their faults. The few nights they had spent curled up together on the sofa, the sweetest tea possible was served, and after they returned from weeks away, they could always count on a refreshing cuppa or two.

After the kettle found out about the affair, she had been so angry with Sherlock that for almost three weeks, all she had been able to supplement was some lukewarm, unappealing stuff. He had eventually returned to drinking coffee. (Along with this switch, he had begun smoking again and resumed injecting himself with those horrid drugs, and the kettle had felt a little guilty for no reason she could think of.) Even after he all but made up with John, she was still irritated at him.

But right now, as he finished wiping down the counter and got down on hands and knees to scrub the kitchen floor, the teakettle would gladly have made him 16 glasses of the finest tea in all England.

Yes, John's return was making everyone cheerier than they had been in weeks. The bedroom was the happiest region of the flat by far, with the kettle's very own kitchen coming in at a close second. According to the kettle's dear friend, the skull, most of the living room was indifferent, but there had been some talk about the matter between a few of the books and the wedding photo was simply over the moon.

The teakettle herself, you may ask? What did she think?

Well, to put it simply, she was overjoyed.

Partially because she loved her owners. This is an irregular trait of an object, as you may know, but she did. She really did love those boys and hated to see them so empty and sad, shells of themselves. And then, there was the fact that John always used her to make at least ten cups of tea every day. The teakettle was one of those rare things that abhors idleness; she was happiest when she was working. (She also was not going to argue with the removal of the eardrums.)

But more to the point. Sherlock had finally finished cleaning at about 7 AM, put some food in the oven to reheat, and gone upstairs to get a couple minutes sleep. The sun was streaming through the windows, the paperbacks had ceased fighting, the flat positively sparkled (the only stray object was a paper clip lying near the fireplace that had cleverly thought to bribe the vacuum), and John was coming home. The kettle had never seen a more perfect day.

Her pensive mood was interrupted when two spoons got into a fight over who was cleaner, of all things, and then the oven realized that Sherlock had somehow forgotten a sponge in its belly and that same sponge was about to combust, and the entire place really just fell to pieces. The wedding photo was past on edge from nerves; the sofa was in hysterics because it had found a spot of chocolate on a cushion; and the bookcase was soothingly reassuring the distraught wall that it was fine, nobody would notice those few stray scratches and dents, and if they did, well, this was John. He would certainly not hold anything against the wall for the presence of a few scars.

Yes, it was chaos, plain and simple – until the doorbell buzzed.

The place hushed rather quickly, and as soon as Sherlock's footsteps were heard on the stairs, all sound died away. He went through the flat and down to the front door, which he opened. The kettle heard him say, "Is that everything?"

"I think so," John replied. A few of the younger textbooks threw caution to the winds and began gossiping again, which everyone else recognized as a bad idea.

"Have you got that, Sherlock?"

"Yes, I'm fine."

As a result of continued bullying, a little fork burst into tears and its tormenters, a few knives and a soupspoon, instantly began picking on it twice as nastily.

"Christ!"

"Oh, shit!"

"And I'm not going to comment on how you obviously did NOT have that box."

"I had it completely under control, John. If you hadn't bumped my elbow…"

"…the box would not have split down the middle and sent all my things rolling back down the stairs. Yes, I get it."

An older knife began to try and beat the rogue silverware back into order. The teakettle realized that there was very little time to act and let out a high-pitched whistle, which startled everyone into silence. Then John and Sherlock actually entered the flat and the only sound was the continued alarm beeping of the oven, which was frantically trying to alert someone to the plight of the unfortunate sponge.

"Christ," John said again. "What. HAPPENED?"

"You don't like it?"

The teakettle resolved to make an extra sweet cup of tea for Sherlock, as the poor dear sounded absolutely heartbroken.

"Of course I like it, Sherlock. It's just – are you feeling all right?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"Usually, Sherlock, when you clean, it's due to the aftereffects of your ingesting several illegal substances or one of your experiments has gone horribly wrong and spread toxic waste all over the flat."

Sherlock did not bother to correct him. This was, in fact, because the bone-dry sponge could not hold out a second longer and spontaneously combusted.

The sponge was eventually doused. The kitchen was filled with heavy smoke, the pristine sink smeared all over with ash, and Sherlock's shirt only slightly burned in front, but the sponge WAS doused. The soap and scrub brush immediately went to comfort the poor blackened creature as John hopped about, swearing, having burnt his hand removing the pans of food from the oven.

The atmosphere of the room was swinging towards prime conditions for a fight. Nobody was sure what to do, or really what could be done. It was all just very awkward, really, until:

John finally let out a breath and said "Well. I'll put the kettle on."

So they had tea. John was bordering on the edge of being late to work, and Sherlock had dismissed twelve texts from Lestrade and thirty-seven from his brother, but those things were secondary. They had tea instead. The kettle, the burner, and the teabags all cooperated in a collaborative effort to make the two finest cups of tea in Westminster, while their owners talked and the sponge smoldered in the sink.

Eventually John reluctantly stood up and said, "I'd better go. If I'm late one more time I'll give Sarah a real reason to sack me." Sherlock huffed but otherwise said nothing.

John brought his mug over to the sink, grabbed his jacket off the counter, and made as if to leave.

It was an entirely impulsive decision, the kettle knew that. But when people (and objects) want something to be true, they are able to block out what their senses tell them and believe what they want to believe. So afterwards, the teakettle always thought otherwise. She always thought that John had planned it, or deeply symbolized some sort of past actions that were to reoccur, or something along those lines.

John swerved a bit abruptly so he was standing right behind Sherlock's chair, then bent down and pressed his lips to Sherlock's wild curls, his hands resting on the detective's shoulders. "See you when I get off work," he said, his voice a bit muffled.

"Mmm hmm."

John turned and went back downstairs, nudging some of his fallen possessions out of his way with his foot. The kettle heard him hail a taxi and drive away.

Sherlock sat there at the kitchen table for a long time, long after Mycroft gave up on texting and began calling instead, long after Lestrade just gave up all together and called in Dimmock for backup.

And long, long after the remnants of his tea had gone cold.

**Aha, Snowracer, my dear…yes, another mention. But really. There are no words I can use to thank you. If I had just two friends like you in my everyday life I'd never have to suffer a bad day :) Thank you so much, love, for taking the time to write such wonderful things and staying with me. Your reviews are really just red velvet cake in disguise.**


	9. Lamp

**Unfortunately, this A/N is devoted to formalities. Ugh. Those pesky things.  
>This is the last chapter. Finis. Done. I owe my dear friend Sherlock-in-the-TARDIS a sort of AU chapter, but in this story arc? I am done. I have no plans for a sequel and after the AU, will probably never approach this sort of thing again. That's just how I roll. You may not see another multi chapter from me for a while, as I need to come up with a new idea – I'm going to collab with columbine-and-asphodel, and will certainly post one-shots, but no big stories for the foreseeable future. (If anyone has prompts, though, I will attack them in earnest!)<br>Also, this draft is giving me HELL. But I'm posting. There's probably some very obvious errors, so if anyone sees something unclear or just completely wrong, please let me know. I have no beta, so this is all under my tired eyes.  
>UPDATE: And yes. Ugh. I posted the wrong chapter last night *bangs head repeatedly on desk* More proof (if I needed any) that getting about three hours of sleep a night just doesn't work. Period. So sorry about that, girls. This is the real chapter *facepalm*<br>Written to "Gasoline Rainbows" by Amy Kuney. One big fat metaphor song, which pretty much describes this fic.  
>Disclaimer: If I owned Sherlock, I'd convert my happiness to energy and power the world.<br>Warnings: ¿Qué?**

If you think your life is boring, you should really meet a lamp.

They don't have anything going on in their little everyday lives. The only thing they can do is switch on and off, on and off. Two different states – just two, mind you. And that's all they ever do. Oh, maybe once in a while someone will replace the bulb, or in a rare case move the lamp a few feet, but for the majority of its life a lamp just sits in the same place and clicks on and off.

Lamps are very gracious about this. You'll never hear a lamp complain. Ever. They know that they're really quite lucky – after all, the threat of the garbage heap is imposed upon every lamp at a young age. They serve their human owners as best they can, then die cheerfully in body under the crushing jaws of the trash compactor. Their souls are left intact and they sort of float away up to some sort of lamp heaven, the existence of which can neither be proved nor denied.

But everything has its exceptions. Every primary school has its bullies, every litter of puppies has its runt.

The lamp in 221B Baker Street was not so happy about its mundane existence. It longed for more; a change in its lifestyle, if you will. It had the restless wanderer syndrome, which is very common in young humans, and wanted to see as much of the world as possible. (In addition, it was not in any way religious and had no promise of a comforting afterlife.) Its owners were not aware of this desire to travel, and as such the lamp was confined to a hideously dull existence on the bedside table. It entertained itself as best it could, and after three years of nothing, resigned itself to the fact that the flat's occupants were, in all probability, the only people it would ever know. So it tried to become fond of them and stay up to date on their day-to-day activities.

It failed rather spectacularly.

However much it tried to prove otherwise, lamps are not exactly observant creatures and this one was no exception. This lamp felt very stupid indeed when, one night, it noticed that John had not come to bed and whispered the question regarding his whereabouts to the room at large. The pillow just sort of looked at it and said in a voice that obviously implied _Wow, you're even stupider than I thought_, "He's been gone for six months now, dear."

The lamp felt a bit bad about this, but then realized that the electrical socket was, for some impractical reason, asleep at 2 AM, and decided to surprise the thing by sucking out a solid 600 volts very rapidly. The socket retaliated by sending back a power surge and the light bulb actually exploded from the force of it, sending shards of glass flying around the room and waking up Sherlock, who, before actually replacing the light bulb, meticulously calculated the trajectory and speed of each shard of glass. (The socket had definitely won that round of the battle.)

So the lamp continued onwards, all the while trying to improve its faulty observational skills, but with nothing really to mark its day-to-day existence – that is, until the gossip started.

It must have been about 2 months after the skirmish between the lamp and the electrical socket when news came that John was back. The duvet was a little apprehensive, due to the fact that it had very nearly been ripped on several occasions, but the overall mood of the room was overtly happy. The lamp, although mostly neutral on the prospect of John's return, was a bit intrigued, as John always brought more interesting use of the lamp. It stayed on later into the night and turned off at more random times when John was there, as opposed to Sherlock, who only turned on the lamp if the streetlamp outside was off and he really couldn't see the tip of his nose, let alone the pages of his book.

John did not move back into the bedroom right away. He had left the flat due to a fight regarding an affair (a nasty business, the doorframe informed the general vicinity) and now he and Sherlock were a bit unstable around each other. They didn't full-out fight, exactly – more like nipped at each other's throats. (The bed nearly collapsed from laughter at the double entrende and after that, almost all hope of normal, albeit polite, conversation was lost.)

The lamp did not lose sight of its ultimate goal of freedom. It made the mistake of confiding in the bedside table that John might possibly have found a new lamp, and the lamp would get to go outside, but the table responded with a snarl, "Yeah, on the way to the junk heap!" The unpleasant experience left the lamp very irritated and wondering why it didn't just throw itself against the wall right now and end it all.

It would have, too, if the doorframe had not screamed "INCOMING!" and the room quickly stood at attention, just to have the door itself splinter to bits from the force of two men crashing through it. The duvet fainted with an exclamation of "Sweet Jesus!" and a discarded textbook on the floor smugly began collecting bets.

Sherlock nearly knocked over the lamp at one point (John all but picked him up and threw him onto the bed – he overbalanced and nearly fell over, grabbing onto the headboard to stay on the bed; unfortunately one of his flailing limbs had hit the lamp) but luckily John caught the teetering thing just in time and then – oh wondrous joyful day! – actually switched it on. The lamp heard a roll of murmurs spread around the room at this, and then heard the objects turn to another, possibly more interesting and definitely more scandalous topic, but it didn't care. It was being used. Unexpected usage was always a welcome change to its everyday routine and if it illuminated some, well, rather more interesting things, it wasn't going to complain.

Afterwards, the mad humans lay tangled in a mess of limbs and sheets, neither of them all too interested in having another go but not about to go to sleep, either. The room was completely abuzz about various topics (most of them ones that would make even the horniest of teenage girls cringe) and the lamp was glowing so brightly that the socket kept having to back off a bit on the electricity being delivered, lest there be a power surge and the fuse be tripped. The lamp was not worried about tripping the fuse, but it did rather want to set some sort of mood and it was not about to let something so trivial as recommended watt usage get in its way.

Eventually, Sherlock nuzzled his face into John's neck and said a bit too hopefully, "Perhaps I am forgiven, then?"

John laughed. "Perhaps."

"Really?"

"No."

"Oh."

"Let's just call it a truce and leave it at that."

"Ah."

The duvet sighed happily – so loudly that conversation broke off in order for the humans to speculate about the origins of the sound. The bed started berating the poor duvet for calling such attention to itself, but at that point the aforementioned humans had abandoned their earlier intentions and were far too busy snogging to notice anything short of a nuclear explosion.

After fifteen minutes of silence (well, near silence – a few of the boxes residing underneath the bed had gotten bored and begun to tickle the bedsprings, which eventually resulted in an enormous creaking from the mattress), John finally reached over his lover and flicked off the lamp. Their faces glowed ghostly pale in the light from the streetlamp outside.

– _Finis – _

**Thousands of thanks to storm101 (who wrote my first review), alisseadreams, TheSecondclassKid, Innominato, thefreakandthegeek, Puskul, sung-me, raven612, unintentionalgenius, pyrodactyl, goodluck-yukikaze, akisura12, karenwalkerdesigns, Her Lee, pillyfish, Coletta, Secret-H, columbine-and-asphodel, bbvampygrl, atoafriend, Chromatisse, HPdork4ever, hoshizuna, Pinguin1993, FinnieKittie, tigga7, rubberhazard, haveacreamteaonme, Goodfairy, Little Missile, rockerchick511, Angelellbaby, Jodi2011, Nephyria, kyranyu, Regency, SecretSnow, WingsAndWater, Pholo, Sandyangel, VolceVoice, iantojones3, TuuliQ, santokee, HoWi, skrillqueen, Cainchan, Mirith Griffin, outofcornflakes, Catindahat, Snowracer, Moogfifi, Soapiefan, Winnie The Pig, silentcrow, Xenon Z, anguslovinghippos, Indoril-Sai, VengeSP, Mitsy-R-Emrys, StarGazingAtMidnight, Sherlock-in-the-TARDIS, E. G. Drummond, IndigoTardisTurtle, Sopsi, Elizabeth Emme, and any and all anonymous readers. And more than love to farfleetingfair and twilarila98, who bridged worlds just for me. **


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